Name: Why Sea Cucumbers Are So Expensive | So Expensive
Uploaded: 2019-01-15T10:26:48.000Z
Duration: 5 min 15 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Narrator: Cucumbers usually cost under $3 a kilo.

But sea cucumbers can set you back over $3,000 a kilo.

people will risk their lives to get ahold of one.

They might not look it, but sea cucumbers

one of the world's foremost experts on sea cucumbers.

They don't have any limbs, they don't have any eyes.

have been prized as a delicacy in Asia for centuries,

where the wealthiest class would eat the animals

But it wasn't until the 1980s that demand exploded.

meant more people could afford the luxury.

Today, they're typically dried and packaged in ornate boxes,

then given as gifts and served on special occasions.

So, the fancier and more unusual-looking, the better.

Purcell: The spikier the animals, the higher the price.

Narrator: And of the 1,250 different species

the Japanese sea cucumber takes the cake.

Purcell: Imagine some sort of mystical dragon

slug with all these sort of spikes coming out of it.

it's the most expensive sea cucumber on the market.

Compared to other varieties, like the Golden Sandfish,

And even if you order a common species on Amazon,

you could still pay over $170 for a plate.

Besides presentation, cucumber connoisseurs also value

thick, chewy bodies, and to a lesser extent, taste.

Turns out sea cucumbers contain high levels

of a chemical called fucosylated glycosaminoglycan

in their skin, which people across Asia have been using

to treat joint problems like arthritis for centuries,

and more recently in Europe, where people are using it

to treat certain cancers and to reduce blood clots.

The sea cucumber craze now comes from all sides.

You have the original Asian delicacy demand

that started in the 1980s, and the new interest

From Morocco to the United States to Papua New Guinea,

everyone wants in on the sea cucumber trade.

Purcell: It's just spread like a contagion

Narrator: For example, from 1996 to 2011,

the number of countries exporting sea cucumbers

But unfortunately, sea cucumbers couldn't handle the strain.

For one, because the more sea cucumbers are harvested,

the rarer and more expensive they become.

between 2011 and 2016. And the rarer these animals get,

the deeper divers are swimming to find them.

Purcell: Some countries, they're doing that

becoming paralyzed through decompression sickness.

Narrator: So far, at least 40 Yucatan divers

have died trying to harvest sea cucumbers.

Of the 70 or more species of exploited sea cucumbers,

numerous fisheries worldwide to shut down

and damaging local economies in the process.

since many larvae die before reaching maturity,

and those that do survive take two to six years

That said, aquaculture for a few varieties

Like with that fancy Japanese sea cucumber.

Purcell: There's now aquaculture in China in the billions.

Narrator: Hopefully more species will be farmed

and help develop potentially life-saving drugs,

then at least to preserve a fascinatingly bizarre animal.